Loyola University Chicago School of Law

Who Are Chicago’s Happiest Law Students?

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This is the third in a series of posts looking at how law schools in specific markets stack up based on the results of our ATL Insider Survey. Very few law schools are truly national institutions. Typically, the majority of graduates don’t stray too far from their alma maters, so the strongest network will be local, for local jobs. It’s to your advantage to go to school where you want to practice, sometimes even more so than going to a higher-ranked school.

In recent weeks, we’ve looked at our survey results pertaining to Boston and New York-area law schools. We examined how current law students rate their schools in terms of academics, career counseling, financial aid advising, practical/clinical training, and social life.

Today we turn to Chicago. Which school was highest rated by its current students in all but one category?

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The Dean’s Office: Why The ABA Is Resistant To Change

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Ed. note: Welcome to the latest installment of The Dean’s Office, a series of posts on legal education by Dean David Yellen of the Loyola University Chicago School of Law.

The American Bar Association plays an important, but often misunderstood, role in legal education. Overall, I believe the ABA deserves mixed grades for its response to the current crisis. It did not cause the crisis, and it is implementing some valuable improvements. But its resistance to change stands in the way of a number of needed reforms.

First, some background. The Council and Accreditation Committee of the ABA Section of Legal Education, not the ABA itself, is authorized by the U.S. Department of Education to accredit law schools. DOE rules require an accrediting agency to be separate and independent from a trade association, so the Section operates essentially autonomously from the main ABA. ABA accreditation is critical to law schools because all states authorize graduates of ABA accredited schools to take the bar examination. Recently, the President of the ABA itself created the Task Force on the Future of Legal Education (on which I serve). The Task Force is an advisory group, though, with no accreditation authority.

Two key features of the ABA process are voluntarism and self-regulation….

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Law Schools May Appear Worse in the Rearview Mirror

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A couple weeks ago, we shared with you some of our survey data, which showed that, generally speaking, law students’ experiences with their schools degrade over time. The ATL Insider Survey asks law students and alumni to rate their schools in the areas of academic instruction, career counseling, financial aid advising, practical/clinical training, and social life. When the ratings by first-year students are compared with those of third-years, the 3L scores are lower across the board, in all categories. In other words, the longer students are exposed to their schools, the lower their regard for the institution becomes. More equals worse.

We wondered whether or how this downward trajectory manifests itself after the students become alumni. After the jump, we compare the perceptions of students to those of graduates. The answer may surprise you, but probably not. Also, we identify the law schools where there is the greatest contrast between the views of current students and alumni — both negatively and positively….

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The Dean’s Office: Three Questions About Legal Education

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Ed. note: This is the latest installment of The Dean’s Office, a series of posts on legal education by Dean David Yellen of the Loyola University Chicago School of Law. You can read the first post here.

The winds of change are swirling around legal education. Many of the critical challenges we are facing today involve the following three factors: capacity, cost, and quality. Are there too many law students, law schools, or both? Why is law school so expensive? Are law schools doing an adequate job of preparing students for their careers? (Note: I have explored these issues in a little more detail in recent posts at The Faculty Lounge.)

The first decade of this century was a boom time for law schools. From 2000 – 2010, first year law school enrollment increased around 20%, from 43,000 to 52,000. The number of ABA accredited schools went from 183 to 200. Jobs seemed plentiful in the first half of the decade, there were strategic advantages to growth and many universities felt it was prestigious to add a law school. Since 2010, the number of applicants has tumbled about 40%. First year enrollment dropped to 44,000 this year. In the fall of 2013, as few as 40,000 students will enroll, representing the smallest number since the 1970’s.

This decline in enrollment is a good thing, given the job market. Fewer than 60% of the class of 2011 had permanent, full-time jobs requiring a JD nine months after graduation. The Bureau of Labor Statistics is projecting around 22,000-25,000 lawyer jobs per year, counting growth and attrition.

These numbers are certainly not the whole story….

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The Dean’s Office: An Introduction

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Ed. note: Welcome to the first installment of The Dean’s Office, a series of posts on legal education by Dean David Yellen of the Loyola University Chicago School of Law.

Welcome to The Dean’s Office. I know that law school deans are not particularly popular on Above The Law, so what am I doing here? In January, I met Elie after he spoke about media and communications in the internet era at the annual conference of all the law schools. We had an interesting conversation (he’s much nicer in person than in print!) and he later asked me to write an occasional column about legal education topics from a dean’s perspective. So for now, I’ll be appearing here every other week.

I have been a law professor since 1988 and a dean (at two different schools) since 2001. In addition to my regular job, I have been involved in legal education reform. I recently served for six years as a volunteer member of the ABA Section of Legal Education’s Standards Review Committee (more on that in future columns) and currently serve on the ABA President’s Task Force on the Future of Legal Education.

These are the most tumultuous times in legal education that many of us have ever seen. The elements of the current crisis are well known. The job market for our graduates has been very rough since the Great Recession. We have learned that law firm jobs were declining even before then, as the impact of changes in the profession, globalization, and technology began to be felt….

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The Best and the Brightest: Some Reflections on Entry-Level Law Firm Hiring

By Bruce MacEwen

Ed. note: This is the first in a new series, “Across the Desk,” from Bruce MacEwen and Janet Stanton of Adam Smith Esq. and JDMatch. “Across the Desk” will take a thoughtful look at recruiting, career paths, professional development, human capital and related issues. Some of these pieces will have previously appeared, in slightly different form, on AdamSmithEsq.com.

As noted in the American Lawyer recently, the lateral recruiting boom of recent years continues unabated. As the Am Law article points out, “At the same time [as they’re focused on hiring lateral partners], firms appear to be homing in on their poor performers. Nine out of 10 survey respondents said their firm has ‘unprofitable’ partners, and seven out of 10 said their firms have partners at risk of being deequitized or ‘put on performance plans.’ As one survey respondent put it: ‘There are too many partners without sufficient billable work.’”

Now, wouldn’t you think it would make sense — if firms are worried about underperformers — to pay some attention to associates as well as partners? After all, some of those associates should, speaking theoretically at least, be your future partners.

Yet there’s unrebutted evidence that firms look at the wrong criteria when hiring associates….

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Breaking: Thomas Jefferson School of Law’s Motion to Dismiss DENIED — And Twenty More Law Schools to Be Sued

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Apparently, suing law schools isn’t a fool’s errand.

Thomas Jefferson School of Law filed a motion to dismiss its class action lawsuit over its employment statistics this summer. On a conference call with Team Strauss/Anziska today, we learned that TJSL’s motion has been denied.

Guess that means we’re in for the long haul with these lawsuits.

Three other law schools have filed motions to dismiss — New York Law School, Cooley Law, and Florida Coastal. Will this be the start of a trend?

When we last checked in with the attorneys responsible for the law school litigation movement, we were informed that “a very big announcement” would be coming in the “next few days.” With a promise to make 2012 the “year of law school litigation,” Team Strauss/Anziska is working hard to remain true to its word. March isn’t even over, and they’ve already sued 12 law schools. In fact, they’re so efficient that we only had to wait one day for the big reveal.

Today, the lawyers leading the law school litigation squad announced that they are planning to target 20 more law schools for class action lawsuits over their allegedly deceptive post-graduation employment statistics. This time around, you may be surprised by some of the law schools that appear on their list.

Is your law school or alma mater going to be a defendant?

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Are Graduates of Elite Law Schools ‘Too Good’ for Biglaw?

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'Find someone else to draft your asset purchase agreement. I'm too busy smoking this pipe.'

That’s the provocative question bouncing around the legal blogosphere these days. It was raised last week by Vivia Chen of the Careerist, then picked up by Professor William Henderson on the Legal Whiteboard, and now it’s the top story on the ABA Journal.

There’s actually some data driving this discussion. According to Chen, citing research by Professor Henderson, graduates of Loyola University Chicago School of Law are six times more likely to make partner at a major law firm than graduates of the higher-ranked University of Chicago Law School, located just a few miles to the south. It seems that even though Chicago Law grads may have an easier time breaking into Biglaw than their Loyola – Chicago counterparts, the Loyola folks who do make it in the door tend to have longer-lasting law firm careers.

Let’s not pick on U. Chicago. There are other elite law schools with even higher Biglaw “washout” rates….

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Is Your Career Services Office This Lazy?

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Insert face of law school student above.

Instead of hiring a new professor to teach Cross-Cultural Comparison of Masturbatory Prohibitions, I want law schools to start paying six-figure salaries to the people they hire to work in their career services offices. I want U.S. News to include the number of CSO professionals and money spent on CSOs as data points in their law school rankings. I want deans to start asking rich alumni if they would like to donate to help fight mental disability and extreme laziness in career services offices.

Because honestly, the lack of effort put in by career services professionals at the nation’s law schools really seems to be out of hand. Maybe they’ve just been collectively beaten down by the years of terrible job prospects and the throngs of students in need of help. Maybe they believe that there really is nothing they can do, and they are significantly more worried about protecting their own jobs than finding jobs for eager law students. Maybe the lack of institutional support and respect for their efforts makes them feel like second-class citizens whenever the Professor of Impractical Studies That Serve No Clients walks into the room.

I don’t know why we’re here, but when you can’t even trust your CSO to effectively cull Symplicity to remove stupid and insulting job prospects like the ones below, it’s time to change the entire approach to law school career services….

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A Farewell to Remember: One Partner’s Dramatic Departure Memo

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If you look back at the great law firm departure memos of years past, you’ll see that almost all of them were written by associates. When partners leave Biglaw, they tend to do so in rather staid fashion, presumably because they have less to complain about (although query whether that’s always the case; see, e.g., A Partner’s Lament).

Every now and then, you’ll come across a colorful farewell message penned by a partner. One such email, sent out last Friday by a longtime partner leaving a major law firm, is now making the rounds. Here’s a teaser: “I have realized that I cannot simultaneously meet the demands of career and family. Without criticizing those who have chosen lucre over progeny, let me just say that I am leaving the practice of law.”

Wow. So who’s the partner in question, which firm did he just leave with such flair, and what’s he planning to do next?

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